


let me in

by thirtyspells (weatherveyn)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: BuffyNatural, F/F, Implied Relationships, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 18:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatherveyn/pseuds/thirtyspells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After running him out of town last time, Michael never expected to see Adam again - but when he shows up on Michael's doorstep with tales of a group of soldiers capturing and experimenting on supernatural beings, Michael can't turn him away. Things get even more complicated when Michael begins to realise he knows even less about Adam than he thought he did...</p><p>Rough fusion with s4 of BtVS, but shouldn't require too much knowledge of BtVS canon to read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let me in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bellacatbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellacatbee/gifts).



Michael is dozing at the dining table when the knock sounds through his apartment. He’s slumped across a pile of assorted books, some of which are older than he is, with his left hand curled loosely atop a legal pad half-filled with his neat handwriting. His glasses are jammed up at an awkward angle, unhooked on one side and pressing a mark into his right temple, and there’s a pen slowly making its way towards the edge of the table.

The second knock comes only seconds after the first, and it’s this one that startles Michael awake. He jerks upright, kneeing the table reflexively and sending the pen jolting onto the floor, and blinks rapidly as he tries to reorient himself, heart pounding. He groans, pulling his glasses off and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, before scowling and shoving his chair back.

“Just a minute!” he shouts, voice hoarse, when a continual knocking starts up.

He’s half asleep and it’s probably only Jo – or maybe Anna, who often forgets her keys and then forgets that he never locks the damn door anyway – but sleepiness and probabilities aren’t enough to make him break twenty years of trained habit, or the paranoia living on a Hellmouth tends to breed.

He glances at the grandfather clock beside the mirror as he passes it, a prickling sense of unease crawling up his spine when he notices it’s well past four in the morning. Anna told him she was heading to Ruby’s for the night after patrol, and even if Jo is just finishing up for the night, it’s unlikely that she’d be knocking at his door without good reason or cause for concern – so who…?

Michael tugs his crucifix out from under the neck of his shirt, letting it fall heavy and warm against his chest before reaching for a crossbow. He loads the bolt with careful, steady hands and only then does he calmly open the door, standing well clear of the threshold. 

“It’s about fucking time,” the boy on his doorstep snarls, glaring up at him through the half-dark, face illuminated in stark contrasts by the light flooding out of the apartment. “How long does it take you to answer a damn door, Mikey?”

“Don’t call me that,” Michael snaps, tightening his grip on the crossbow and resisting the urge to step forward. “What are you doing here? You swore you wouldn’t come back if we let you leave, Adam. If you’re breaking that agreemen–”

Adam sneers at him, lip curling back from straight, white, human teeth. “Yeah, I was set to leave town –  _believe me_ , I was ready to kiss this place goodbye – but then some fucking – look, just let me in and I’ll explain. I can’t stay out here too long – they’ll find me.”

“What are you talking about?” Michael asks, eyes narrowing. “Who will find you?”

“The soldiers,” Adam hisses, shooting a look over his shoulder. “The fucking soldiers, you idiot.”

Michael considers firing the crossbow while he’s distracted, mentally goes through the motions of lifting, steadying the bow, aiming and firing, but Adam’s eyes are back on him in a flash, wide and blue-green and, god, he looks young. Too young. He’s gaunt and paler than ever, eyes dull with exhaustion and set deep in shadowed sockets in a way that makes him look so painfully vulnerable that Michael manages to forget, for just a moment, what Adam really is under the human mask.

“What soldiers?” Michael forces himself to ask, even as there’s a realisation dawning in the back of his mind. “What are you talking about?”

“Michael…  _please_ ,” Adam says, not quite begging, but desperate and utterly void of pride or arrogance for the first time Michael can remember. “Let me in. I won’t hurt you, I promise – I  _can’t_  hurt you.”

Michael stares for a moment, filing away Adam’s choice of words (can’t?) for later and taking in the faint trembling of Adam’s hand where it rests against the door jamb. His face is disturbingly thin, and his clothes – usually almost indecently close-fitting – seem to hang off his body, nearly a full size too big. He’s never seen Adam look so weak, or so scared, and against his will he is remembering that Adam has always been brutally honest, even when it would benefit him to lie or deceive.

“Come in, Adam,” Michael says before he can stop himself, stepping back from the door and raising the crossbow in warning.

Adam lifts his hands in gesture of surrender, shoulder slumping with unconcealed relief as he crosses the threshold and shuts the door quickly behind him, settling his back against it and closing his eyes. Part of Michael is irritated that Adam doesn’t consider him enough of a threat to stay alert, but that part is taking a back seat to the part of him methodically cataloguing Adam’s appearance. In the full light, the line of his jaw is razor sharp, cheeks hollow, and his collarbone stark through his black shirt. There’s an unhealed bruise darkening one eye even further, and his lower lip and the skin across his cheekbone is split and swollen.

“Thanks,” Adam says, opening his eyes and smirking, though there’s something weak about the expression, something definitely forced. “You’re too trusting for your own good, Watcher. I could’ve wanted to rip your throat out, and you would’ve let me right in to do it.”

Michael snorts. “Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to kill me? I’m not as strong as you, perhaps, but I am not weak. I can handle you.”

“You think I was really trying to kill you?” Adam asks, grinning now as he steps towards Michael. “Oh, that’s cute. Believe me, sweetheart, if I wanted you dead, you would be.”

“Perhaps,” Michael concedes, raising an eyebrow and smiling easily at him. “But not in your current state. I think even  _Balthazar_  could take you right now.”

Adam’s eyes blaze with anger, flickering gold for a moment as his lips pull back in a snarl, revealing inhumanly pointed teeth for a split second. Michael sighs and lifts the crossbow pointedly, grip tightening in preparation to fire – but Adam makes no move towards him, just clenches his fists and straightens his shoulders, jaw tense. Michael relaxes his grip, but doesn’t lower the bow.

“You said you’d explain if I let you in,” Michael says casually, shifting his weight to balance his stance. “Explain.”

“Not even going to offer me a seat, first? A drink?” Adam asks, leaning back against the door again and folding his arms over his chest. “That’s pretty rude, man.”

It almost looks casual, but Michael catches the faint trembling of his legs and the heavy slump of his body – he’s almost too weak to stand. Michael frowns, wondering what on earth happened to make him so vulnerable.

“I don’t think I have what you want to drink,” Michael replies dryly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Adam says, dragging his gaze up Michael’s body before settling on his face, eyes half-lidded. “I think you might.”

“Adam,” Michael says, sighing again. “I have a crossbow and it’s four o’clock in the morning. I’m too tired to deal with you being a brat, so either tell me what’s going on or I’ll shoot you and have Anna sweep when she gets home in the morning.”

Adam licks his lips, arrogance fading into exhaustion again. He’s quiet for a long moment, and Michael is almost at the point of threatening him again when he finally speaks.

“When I was leaving town, last time, someone got me from behind – tazered me, knocked me out before I could do anything,” Adam says, expression blank and voice void of emotion. “I woke up in a tiny cell with no door and a little slot in the ceiling. I couldn’t see anyone else, but I could smell them – vamps, demons, a couple of humans, maybe, but it was hard to tell. Mostly it just smelled like fear. Death.

“Couldn’t really tell time, but I think it was a couple of days before they dropped food in. I was too hungry by then to think – I just ate.” Adam smirks, cold and self-deprecating. “They drugged the blood, of course. Knocked me out again. When I woke up I felt like I’d drunk a liquor store and woken up three days later lying in the middle of a moshpit –  _again_.”

Adam lifts a hand to touch the side of his head, fixing a sharp stare on Michael as he taps it with two fingers.

“They did something to me – not sure what, but they’ve fucked with my head, somehow. I can’t…” His mouth twists, half disgust and half anger. “When I escaped, I tried to bite someone – I hadn’t eaten in days because the blood was drugged, I could smell it through the plastic, and I was hungry. It felt like getting shot in the head, as soon as I tried, so I shoved her out of the way and just ran.”

Michael stares, fascinated despite himself and a little disturbed. It fits too well with Anna and Jo’s reports of black-uniformed men taking out a vampire the week before to be a lie, but they had assumed the vampire was killed – if what Adam’s claiming is true, then they have a much bigger problem on their hands than they anticipated.

He’s uneasy, too. He’s never heard of a way to tame a vampire, at least not without binding a soul to it like Dean, and a small part of him is horrified. Vampire or not, Adam is sentient, and what he’s talking about makes Michael’s skin crawl. If there is the technology – or the magic – to control a vampire like this, then what’s next? Controlling humans? Weaponising demons? Both thoughts are making him sick to his stomach.

“I think,” Michael says slowly, lowering the crossbow. “That you should sit down, and tell me everything you can remember.”


End file.
